
It was November 1989 when the body of 31-year-old John Russell, who worked at a bar in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, was found at the bottom of a cliff in Tamarama.
The coroner would find his death was accidental; a result of drinking too much the night before.
Around the same time, two other men went missing in Bondi.
One was 25-year-old television presenter, Ross Warren, who was last seen driving along Oxford Street in July 1989 after a night out with friends.
Two days after his disappearance, the keys to his car were found beneath a cliff top at Marks Park – the same cliff where Russell’s body had been discovered.
Then there was Gilles Jacques Mattaini, a 27-year-old Frenchman, who had gone missing a few years earlier. He was last seen walking on the Tamarama coast track.
But, there’s more.
In 1988, 27-year-old Scott Johnson, an exceptional mathematician who was completing his doctorate, bought a ticket to Manly. Two days later, his naked body was found at the bottom of a cliff. It was deemed a suicide.
Then, in 1992, there was 64-year-old Cyril Olsen. His body was found in Rushcutters Bay, and even though an autopsy determined he had been horrifically beaten, Olsen’s death was officially recorded as a drowning.
So, what did these five men, who all died in suspiciously similar circumstances, within a close radius of each other, have in common?